The recent Galaxy S23 update brought a big change to the SOS feature.
To make up for the delay in the June 2023 update for its flagship, the Galaxy S23, Samsung has packed a slew of improvements and new features into this update. It was published a few days ago in some Asian countries, and this week it has expanded to Europe. We discovered that it makes a big change in how the SOS function works. Especially on the Galaxy S23 series of phones.
In older versions of One UI, Samsung’s Galaxy phones called an emergency number when the power button was pressed three times in quick succession. Also, the SOS function was still active. Then, Samsung added the option to disable this feature. On newer phones, Samsung has also changed the number of power button presses required. Among other things, pass three through five, to match running a stock version of Android from Google.
The SOS emergency call shortcut can no longer be disabled on the Galaxy S23
With the Galaxy S23 series’ June update, Samsung has removed the ability to disable the Emergency SOS feature. It is unclear if this was an intentional or accidental change. But once the June update is installed, pressing the power button five times will trigger a call to the emergency response number.
It is not easy to accidentally press the power button five times. In addition, it is difficult to make an unwanted emergency call. Also, it is not recommended to disable a feature that can help you in a crisis. Most of the users probably did not know that it is possible to disable the SOS emergency call shortcut. Thus, this change is not likely to affect the majority of users.
After the June update, the SOS shortcut will be permanently enabled. It remains to be seen if Samsung will address this issue in future updates.
